Mountain Rescue

Today was a very interesting day. It started off all damp and nasty, looking like not a good day to go climbing at all. However, we’d decided to go to Langdale anyway since it was away from the Centre and somewhere nice to go. You can always sit in a tea shop in Ambleside if the weather’s crap.

First I went to Cotswold in Keswick and dropped off my CV - I need some work for the Winter - and then off we went, arriving in Langdale about 45 minutes later, which wasn’t too bad considering the number of slow drivers who didn’t like staying in their lanes infesting the road. Really, do whatever speed you feel safe doing, but please make it so other people can at least get around you when the road is clear. Mirrors are good things to look into. Forcing me to drive at 30 in a national speed limit zone is just causing an obstruction.

Scout Crag was our destination. A mere 10 minute stomp up the hillside - if I were writing the guidebook entry it’d probably say

Quote:

Strike purposefully up the hillside to a stile. Ignore the stile as the wall has fallen down, and continue your upwards progression through the thickening bracken to a stile so steep you may as well lead it. There is now a mere five minutes of steep scree to overcome which will leave you gasping and panting at the bottom of the crag. Consider climbing easy routes until your breath returns.

A ten minute stomp if you’re fit and a relation of the Bionic Man, that is.

The imaginatively named “Route 2″ was our chosen climb. It looked easy enough, lots of ledges to stand on, a rocky staircase to go up and some other people climbing on another route on the crags below us. Off we went, enjoying the large foot-ledges and amazingly useless places to put gear. Strange off-balance shuffly moves were also required to get over seemingly easy pieces of rock.

The other two people roped up and began climbing the same route. They seemed to be going really fast and heading towards my small belay ledge I’d taken root on. Maybe we’d have to let them go past, or stop and chat while I waited my turn up it.

Not so, said the gods of physics, knees and general bad luck as the lead climber in the other pair let out a lot of grunting and shouting noises. “God, he’s making that sound difficult!” I though… “No, he’s just dislocated his knee” God may or may not have said depending on if you think he exists or not. He didn’t say it to me, his belayer did though.

Being the resourceful climbers we expected them to be, they began trying to extract themselves from the large belay ledge below me. Deciding they could manage, I carried on up to the top of the route. By the time I’d reached the top they’d decided they couldn’t get off the ledge and could we come and help them when we’d finished. Of course we could, helping injured people is what you do - after all, one day it might be you needing help and it’s just the right thing to do anyway.

By the time we’d got to the bottom of the crag they’d phoned Mountain Rescue anyway. We decided the best thing to do would be to stop and watch. Mostly out of interest, but “just incase they need extra help” being our justification for watching.

The Team were pretty efficient, sending a man within half an hour of them phoning for help. He began striking purposefully up the hillside, arriving as a wheezing gasping definitely non-bionic person and proceeded to sort things out and have a chatter on his radio to everyone else who soon arrived in various vans and ambulances with flashing lights.

They strapped his leg up, removed him from the ledge by doing a tandem abseil (exactly the same way I would rescue someone who’d got stuck on an abseil) and then securely attached him to a stretcher. I’ve done stretcher carries before. They’re Not Fun. People Are Heavy and you need at least six people to carry someone more than a few metres.

As far as rescues go, it was the kind of thing you could write a textbook on. The casualty was tandem-abseiled off the crag, popped into a nice, warm bag and put on a stretcher. The stretcher had to be carried over scree, steep grass, boggy ground, two dry stone walls and a field of sheep. About the only thing missing was a river-crossing, but that’s only because the river had drained.

Now I need to remember to find the 2005 Langdale Mountain Rescue Report when it’s been made to see what they wrote about the incident.

Oh, and we got back in time for tea. I phoned Orange, and after getting lost in their system, was told how to retrieve my voicemail and discovered Cotswold want to interview me. While I was on the phone, the Keswick Mountain Rescue Team drove past in the general direction of the mountains at the back of the valley.

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Tags: Climbing, Event, Lake District